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Saturday, October 13, 2012

An Open Letter to SlutWalk (2011)

GRRRL, WE DON'T NEED POLICE!
There is this idea that the government and police should be appealed
to in order to protect women-identified people from rape culture; that
women, trans, anti-racist, sex worker, and queer inclusive legislation
should, in theory, protect us. Unfortunately, this faith in a fatherly
liberal government neglects the investment that capitalism, the state
and the prison industrial complex (PIC) have in perpetuating rape
culture and monopolizing "violence" as well as "justice".
In early 2011, two high profile cases in Chicago and New York City
explicitly illustrated the ways that police their power to exert force
over others and walk away exempt. In Chicago, two officers routinely
escorted women home and then raped them; in NYC, officers were acquitted
despite a recording in which one officer admitted to the rape. It is
not merely an issue of a few bad apples, as the system will always
excuse their actions, and perhaps send a few politicians to community
forums in a feign of "accountability" and openness. This is not new to
us in Seattle, as we hold Ian Birk's vicious murder of John T. Williams,
and Birk's exoneration, fresh in our minds; or Officer Clayton Powell,
who was investigated by the SPD for threatening and stalking his
ex-wife, but as reported by the Seattle PI, "cops who abuse their wives
rarely pay the price".
As demonstrated by a Toronto cop, the demand for "more dialogue" with
the police ignores the crucial role the cops and the state play in
upholding rape culture. As supporters of survivors, why would we ever
ask for justice under a system that puts the survivor on trial and
reinforces the violence of gender, heteronormativity, race and class?
Police and prison culture creates a false notion of served justice in
which our ability to take back our bodies and our lives is crushed by
the gears of capitalism and the state.
More legislation for justice and "hate crimes" seems especially
farcical, as the law is commonly used against us when we fight back. In
Winnipeg, a city with a deep history of "starlight tours" where police
drive indigenous women out of the city to rape and abandon in the snow, a
transwoman has been incarcerated for nearly a year awaiting trial. Her
charges stem from defending herself against the taunts and attacks of a
man who propositioned her and tried to steal her shoes. In the summer of
2006, seven queer women of color in NYC were assaulted by a man on the
street who threatened to "fuck them straight". Despite being assisted by
two other men, the women were put on trial for attempted murder,
accused of a hate crime against a white man, and called a "wolf pack of
lesbians". Meanwhile, the PIC will profit off of their captivity, as
four of the seven were sentenced to between 3 and 11 years in prison.
Creating more opportunities to send people to jail, in fact, only
furthers the PIC's ability to continue to do harm and attack individual
and community capacities for self-organization and safety. One of the
most insidious myths of rape culture ignores that most assault happens
within immediate communities and many survivors can name their rapist.
Calling the cops becomes less of an option when survivors know that
their rapist is equally vulnerable to violence at the hands of the
police. Prisons and the police do little to address the root of rape
culture in our communities, especially non-white, queer, immigrant and
low income communities.
Prisons are just another face of big business; not only are they a
source of free/slave labor, but the private ownership, food and
construction contracts to be won create a cyclical need for more
prisoners. Additionally, many rapes that happen in prison go completely
undocumented because of the systemic attack on criminalized classes that
enables the PIC.
It is not enough to ask for reform from a system that disappears
people through the construction of borders and jails, while affirming
cultural values about rape, gender, race and straightness. The only
people who should be in the business of articulating and setting
boundaries for how they experience their bodies are people themselves,
NOT the State, NOT the police, and certainly not industries hellbent on
manifesting insecurities that keep us tied to mythical protectors.
Instead, let us consider other ways of affirming our own agency and
dismantling the apparatus of the State and all of its constituents.
As anarchists, we want the extinction of police and prison culture.
As survivors, we want to set the boundaries for how and when we fight
back against sexual violence.
(A)!
some tuff bitches
RESOURCESwww.pugetsoundanarchists.org // www.criticalresistance.org // http://www.incite-national.org/ // *http://www.incite-national.org/media/docs/9261_anti-prisonbrochure.pdf

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Anarcha: Mother of Gynecology

It was after being part of anarcha.org that I learned of a woman named Anarcha, having nothing to do with anarcha-feminism, but whose story is very relevant. I was reminded of her recently by my friend Will who wants to study midwifery. Anarcha was a slave who was experimented on by a gynecologist numerous times without anesthesia.Anarcha: Mother of GynecologyAnarcha's Story